


DNy

by kkamagui



Category: Tekken
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkamagui/pseuds/kkamagui
Summary: Hwoarang can imagine it now:Are you a big fan of this world-renowned pop star? Well, now, you can be like them too; down to bone marrow and body structure—all for the right price.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 

21:44. The dull chrome of streets and sidewalk grows vibrant with nighttime light, pulsing with neon staccato of traffic signals and holographic signs. Towering buildings mar the vision of slow sunset crush across the horizon, peaks of tar shielding the city from spring season alpenglow. The people have seen yet another bright sunny day with hardly any cloud cover. Twenty degrees Celsius and precisely thirty-five percent humidity levels. Beautiful weather, isn’t it—says the forecast.

 

 _Artificial_ , Hwoarang reminds himself. Seoul has not had a real sunset in decades. The skydome extends from the DMZ, that was turned in a chemical wasteland a century ago, all the way to the southern offshore islands—a magnificent, holographic, magnetic-field mimicry of weather patterns from the safer half of the 2000s. They have seen the same beautiful days, the same mild temperatures for weeks now. An upgrade from winter weather. Better than outside the skydome, where fully organic humans are forced to wear body suits and masks to survive.

 

He gestures at the server hovering by him and holds up his credit chit for scanning. The emptied plates dissipate into sparks. On the corner of his glasses, a red display informs him of his target’s proximity.

 

His target bypasses typical security measures, slipping through public scanners to mingle into the crowd. This is fine—Hwoarang still has his organic eyes. Software jamming makeup or no, he can still _see_.

 

He tracks them into a surface-level unlisted alley, one that is visually barred to those with modified sight. Mishima CyGen Model 09, he muses, or 11, depending on the weapon kit equipped. He hopes it is a 09 since those are not equipped with lasers and curses when these hopes quickly prove untrue. All of the MCM line is attractive enough to suggest minor cosmetic surgeries and seem normal to any other citizen. This specific one has thin grey grid of makeup on, sharp red eye shadow—subtle enough to pass under a cursory glance, and definitely more than enough to mess with any facial recognition software. Damn Japanese tech.

 

“Just so you know,” he says, finding his footing on the side of a building. He stands at ninety degrees to the ground, bends his left leg to give himself better leverage. “Diving without consent is illegal. Especially in salons.”

 

The MCM11 does not reply and instead sends a searing laser in his general direction. He hops out of the way, but just barely. The alley is cramped and unlikely to maintain holographic integrity if the entire place gets put to flames, so he switches modules from gravity to speed. Just as he activates it, however, the CyGen unit freezes in place for several long seconds. Long enough for him to get behind and attach a memory device without any hassle.

 

“Damn it,” Hwoarang curses when it shuts down on him, collapsing into a pile of metal-mind-circuitry. Hwoarang then gingerly pushes at a cheek to look at the side of the unit’s neck. Just as he had anticipated, a blooming, bruising mess of imploded veins presses against the skin. Surprisingly, the blood still seems red. Brain-implant security measures. Typical.

 

He wrests the memory device from the dead cyborg, contemplating whether he should dismantle some pieces and take them with him or not.

 

 _Don’t bother_. Baek’s voice crackles in his earpiece. _The important bits will be fried, and Model 11s are outdated._

 

Hwoarang rolls his eyes in lieu of voicing his exasperation. It is frustrating when the enemy evades with such cheap tactics. He also hates returning empty-handed. “Fine, but I’m still taking the mask. The makeup pattern could be useful.”

 

If forensics do not scope out the dead body, the organic bits will wither. What will remain are only a chrome skeleton and two unseeing eyes, metal melded into bone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Record Log: Mishima_Cygen_Models_

  * _00 – 05: Customer service. Optimized for public-appropriate services. Body models: [CLASSIFED]_
  * _06 – 07: Normalcy. Optimized for partnership. Body Models: Nakamura, Yui; Senjuu, Asahi._
  * _08 – 12: Combat series. Optimized for Mil-Ops. Body Models: [Unknown]_
  * _13 – 15: Stealth series. Optimized for infiltration. Body Models: Kawayama, Ryuuhei; [Unknown]_
  * _16: No public encounters or records found._
  * _17 – 22: No public encounters or records found._



 

 

* * *

 

 

Hwoarang sleepily looks over security footage of _Shocking Experience_ , a pleasure salon deep in the heart of Under-Seoul Level 4 that has exhibited a spike in criminal activity for the past few months. Dead people are commonplace around these addict havens, but more recent corpses have turned up completely wiped of DNA. All that is left of them are the fried circuitry from too much high-intensity static treatment. Unrecognizable. Almost purely cybernetic.

 

Either destroying the DNA is covering victim patterns, or it’s another harvest spree by corporations in an attempt to monetize yet even more possible cosmetisurgeries. Hwoarang can imagine it now: _Are you a big fan of this world-renowned pop star? Well, now, you can be like them too; down to bone marrow and body structure_ —all for the right price.

 

The only thing is, celebrities wouldn’t go to public salons like _Shocking Experience_. They would go further underground, to the levels that usually require some security clearance or serious stealth modules. The deepest Hwoarang has ever gone is Level 14, subsector 2. Technology has advanced far enough to create deep-earth safe spaces even inside the hot and turbulent shift of magma, but he still would rather give up booze than venture below Level 20. The idea of being surrounded by something worse than seawater does not sit well with him. Given the choice between that and the chemical jungles of the surface, though, _maybe_.

 

Sighing, he mentally rewinds the footage again and tries to concentrate. The same MCM06, a series optimized for normalcy, walks into the salon and leaves at a timestamp two hours later. No visible changes. Policies guarantee complete privacy of clients during their sessions, so they have no way of seeing what may have happened inside. Autopsy tracks the victim’s time of death within those two hours, mainly since what remained of the corrupted memory was its time of shutdown. Otherwise, the procedure did not turn up much of anything helpful.

 

Footage from two weeks ago show a similar situation: a MCM11—now dead—in and out of the salon within two hours.

 

“My eyes hurt,” he complains loudly. Baek sits still and rigid beside him, looking through another set of security footage. Hwoarang will never understand how the man manages to work even after a full thirty-hour day cycle. With a grunt, he unplugs the footage from his skull port and gets out of his seat to stretch.

 

“You’ve hardly made a dent in the security logs,” Baek says chidingly, eyes flickering cyan-green-indigo-red as he speeds through different footage.

 

“Have you found anything?”

 

“No,” Baek says after a long moment. “Only that its likely the Mishima Cybatsu is confident that people cannot decipher their motives. They’re sending in all types of MCMs without reserve.”

 

Hwoarang shrugs unhelpfully. “I had the idea that they’re harvesting DNA of famous people so that they can make another expensive cosmetisurgery procedure.”

 

“Long ago that would have been an outlandish idea. Now, however,” Baek sighs, unplugging as well. His eyes go dark, returning to deep brown, “I am not so sure you would be wrong. And even with its large presence, the Mishima Cybatsu can only have so many enemies in the general public worth assassinating. There would be a reason they are targeting Seoul.”

 

“Far as I’m aware, Under-Tokyo is basically the same. Minus the good kimchi.”

 

Leaning back, Baek hums thoughtfully. Now that the neon glow has left his eyes, perhaps he does look a bit tired. Even with their enhanced ability to run on little sleep, they do still have organic bits that need rest. Hwoarang chugs the rest of his cold coffee and sinks back into his chair.

 

“I’m gonna keep looking, I guess. Been a long day for you,” he says.

 

“Don’t fall asleep still plugged in,” Baek agrees, rising. “You’ll get nightmares.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Against his better judgment, Hwoarang ends up booking a couple slots at _Shocking Experience_ , just for an hour each. He isn’t new to pleasure salons by any means, but it is a long-standing agreement between him and Baek that he needs to avoid getting back into bad habits. The previous session had yielded no new information, and he descends from Seoul to the Under with mild trepidation and hope that this time will turn up something useful. Normally he would steer clear of the general area, but well—DNA-absent husks are not exactly _normal_.

 

He steps into the place at 27:50, making his way to the counter to check in for what he hopes is the last time. Hwoarang thinks that having the foresight to come in disguise may later be to his benefit, but he feels unsure when the laser-scan picks at his body. Its meant to destroy any lingering outside-contaminants, and is also a good way of frying malicious tech. Despite their reputations, pleasure salons are just as clinically sterile as any hospital and quite insistent on anonymity. When the scan lifts off of him without detecting his thin mask, he lets out a small breath. The mask is of a similar design to the one he lifted off the MCM11 a few weeks ago; subtle, tuned to give his face an uninteresting, bland look.

 

The chair in his soundproofed booth is plush, molding around his body as he sinks into place. It feels like sinking into a hungry, warm ocean; a little dangerous, a little surrendering.

 

“Which ports would you like to pleasure today?” asks the mechanized assistant. It has a curved frame to mimic a more natural human shape, with four thin arms equipped with varying ergonomic tools for hands. It hovers next to him, holding a thick wire in a careful grip. The smooth steel head faces him as though holding eye contact. “And to what degree?”

 

“Just the back,” Hwoarang says, sitting up to let the assistant plug him in. Mentally he calibrates the mics he had tagged in various areas of the lobby and nearby booths. “And the mildest setting.”

 

His body is already thrumming with near-forgotten anticipation as the booth dims, leaving him sunken and vulnerable. The sparks start slowly, then come in increments. Warmth spills like honeyed waves over his body, fizzling into a pleasant static that has him hissing.

 

 _“Fuck_ ,” he says, and clenches his fingers.

 

He sees visions, bright-eyed creatures emerging as golems from the crusted, infertile surface earth. They solidify, glow like fire, smile in titanium and gold, reach smooth fingers into his chest to yank at his nerves. Hwoarang closes his eyes to focus less on the static and more on noise the mics may have picked up, but the static seeps into his mind like poison.

 

Hwoarang opens his eyes to clear-blue-deep ocean, feeling the cool sway of water against his skin and the caress of coldness against his jaw. He sinks further, watching the sunlight dapple the faraway surface with the muted click of abyssal creatures in his ear.

 

Clicking of a gun, clicking of heel-toe on marble floor, clicking alien tongues and time-space between the stars—

 

Clicking—

 

He forces himself to sit up, bleary-eyed and clumsy as he attempts to shut the machine off.

 

In the dark, pinpoints of light look like red constellations, sinister and directed at him. A glint of something sharp pierces his static-laden haze, and Hwoarang tears himself away from the chair, shouting in pain as the wire disconnects and leaves his whole being abruptly cold and sensationless. Speed module halfway activated, he stumbles away from the shadowy horror. The lights in the booth come back full intensity as the disconnect error processes.

 

Dazed, he takes in the form of some faceless assassin: slim carbon fiber body, knives for fingers and a black hole for a mouth. The knife-fingers waggle at him, clicking sharply. A Haenyo, he recognizes, a newer, more lethal model than the obsolete and illegalized military units. He swears as it makes another lunge for his neck—to his port—trying to Dive!—he realizes belatedly.

 

With an effort, he takes the sparking, disconnected wire and jams in into the Haenyo, overriding the controls to maximum intensity. The body drops and writhes on the ground, and Hwoarang slips into a weary sit as the door slips open as if there had not just been a fumble of chaos within. The metal creature lets out a noise halfway between a moan and a scream.

 

“You’re alive,” says someone, sounding mildly surprised. Measured and sure. “…How did you override the system?”

 

“Yes,” says Hwoarang.

 

The stranger takes another look at his harried appearance and reconsiders his words. It is hard to focus on the face; must be a deflecting mask. He cannot get a good read of the tech beneath the surface but recognizes the Mishima brand. Another MCM? “Your mask,” the stranger taps at his own head. “It’s cracked.”

 

Hwoarang runs a palm over his face to find that his mask is, indeed, quite cracked. He peels it from his face with disgust, letting it clatter on the ground before it dissolves into air. He breathes easier now, with less weighing on his frame. “Who’re you?” he slurs, standing on shaky legs. “You aren’t security.”

 

“It seems that the alert system for this wing of booths was disabled. Call me Kazama,” Kazama says. “I’ll take the assassin. It was likely trying an illegal—”

 

“Dive, yes, I know.” Figures that of all times the culprit tries to find a victim, it’s when Hwoarang is here. He pauses after hearing commotion from the mics, tilting his head. His entire body aches something awful. The Haenyo still thrashes on the floor, overcome with static. If it survives even a little longer with max intensity, Hwoarang would almost be impressed. “Either way, security is on its way. Better get that thing out of here.”

 

Shouldering his way out of the room, Hwoarang glances at this Kazama person. With that much shielding and deflection, it is almost a wonder that he managed to sneak past all the salon regulations.

 

The Haenyo’s body has gone still, the static machine sparking and most likely broken. He shakes his head, saves the last few minutes of his optic processes, and leaves before security can pull him aside. If Kazama had turned to give him another curious look, he does not want to remember it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You _what_?” Baek says, staring at him across their mugs of tea.

  
“Uuugh,” Hwoarang says, holding a cooling patch to his head. The whole ordeal had forced some of his processors into overdrive, and he has a headache from all of it. His body hums with mild pain. His right eye hurts the most, and he’s wearing a patch to keep it from obscuring his vision with glitches. It is almost like he has one of those _colds_ that used to be a thing before the human body became less biology and more technology. “I _said_ I managed to get footage of a possible culprit in the whole, y’know, _Shocking Experience_ business.”

 

“I understood that,” his mentor says coolly. “I also understand that you personally went to this place and nearly got yourself killed in the process?”

 

“Uugh,” says Hwoarang.

 

Baek gives him this _look_.

 

“I’m not getting back into that deal,” Hwoarang mumbles into his mug, sniffing at the pungent tea. “Just wanted to see if I could get any information, and it isn’t like staking out in the lobby would be suspicion-free.”

 

“I will review your footage in due time,” Baek says. “What concerns me is the stranger you encountered. He saw your real face?”

 

“Mask cracked.” Hwoarang sips the tea and makes a face. “He didn’t try to finish the assassin’s job, so _probably_ not on the enemy’s side.”

 

“Or he is from another corporation working with the Cybatsu, or trying to sabotage. The same goes for whoever manufactured the Haenyo. We will need to analyze what you managed to see carefully.” Baek sits back and crosses his arms, brown eyes contemplating the ceiling. The northern window shows a nice, modest view from Over-Seoul. Another nice sunny day, skies bluer than the imagination. A speckle of clouds dots the horizon line, but not enough to be overbearing or ominous. Hwoarang sighs. He has seen archaic videos from centuries before, where this view would be any normal day, far before the skydomes had been built across the world. He wonders what the people immortalized into AI and steel skeleton would think of the sky now.

 

Hwoarang drops his gaze from the blued glass, thinking back to his most recent near-death encounter. Had he remained blissfully unaware of the odd presence in the booth, the Dive would have been successful. The assassin would have found whatever its objective had been and drained his body of DNA trails. He had only picked up on the abnormal patterns since Baek had drilled into him all of the seventy possible different phases of static-induced hallucinations available to body types with at least some organic composition. Fifty-two for bodies of no organic composition. Five of the same pattern is not possible with how his own sensory nodes are wired.

 

He cannot get the clicking to leave his head.

 

There is the question of how the Haenyo had snuck into the booth’s security measures. There lies another question in the data it would try to harvest from its Dive. Perhaps the pleasure salon is aware of the shady business killing its choice clientele, but is turning a blind eye in pursuit of other profits.

 

“It is disturbing,” Baek notes, “to see yet another one of our old war weapons resurface. This may involve more politicking than we are used to. I will browse through my contacts for any information on this Kazama individual. We will need to analyze the Haenyo itself, or at least obtain knowledge of its body model.”

 

“Right,” Hwoarang says, thinking that he would rather not have to deal with the consequences of running away from the crime scene empty-handed.

 

“I will prepare the Upload process before you have to defrag your memory. In the meanwhile,” Baek says pointedly. “Finish drinking your tea.”

 

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

 

During the short while that Hwoarang recovers from overloaded processors, he suffers indoors with constant dregs of Baek’s tea and collects what information he can surrounding the Mishima Cybatsu and its partners. For the most part, it is a highly private company with an obvious public face meant to steer away general interest. The main front of its business lies within cyborg manufacturing as a pioneer within its field. There are models designed anywhere from assistants for everyday household chores to public services and personal companions. A little more digging reveals models dedicated to mil-ops for the war that technically ended on hollow peace treatises two centuries ago—but have been on the brink of imploding to cause yet another world apocalypse.

 

News articles for the generic reader leave the CEO a nameless figure promising better products in the near future. No statements address the nature of some of the more dangerous MCMs that Hwoarang has had personal business with, nor do they reveal anything about their involvement with recent crimes. Naturally, most of that is kept under the public radar, but even police archives have little information. No amount of bizarrely worded intranet searches and bartering with minor hackers yields what he is searching for, so Hwoarang decides to take a well-deserved break.

Hwoarang stands abruptly, yawning. He has had at least five mugs of Baek’s disgusting tea throughout his browsing. Leaving a note on his main screen instead of letting Baek know that he is going somewhere— _Getting dinner, be back by 2800—_ he then shuffles his way through the holographic maze out of the den.

 

When he walks into civilization, Neo-Sinchon-ro is more colorful than usual. In the dark of the city’s artificial night, beams of colored light color the chrome pavements. Hwoarang’s quick steps into a bright pink circle cause a major chord, and his brief step in a puddle of turquoise rings E-flat. A new display, he notes, glancing at the overhead pinpoints of color. E-flat still rings in his ears. He looks back down, then steps out of the circle and into silence. A few children stomp excitedly over their shadows, clearly enjoying the sound art that only they can hear, immersed in pale glow.

 

He is mostly bare-faced since Baek has warned him against straining his frame again, only wearing a distraction mask of the slightest degree. As he walks through the familiar streets, he feels strangely exposed, even knowing that most cameras cannot get a good read on the whole of him anyways. He ends up taking a longer route, favoring the narrow and twisting alleys over the flat, bustling roads.

 

Hwoarang stops by his usual noodle and soup shop. It is in a central location of Middle Seoul, situated between two of the busiest lightrail stops and within easy reach of other popular cafes and eateries. Normally he would come here for a quick meal, dawdling only to gather information from passersby and to survey the scene. Now, he grumbles into his gomtang broth, a bit tired and still somewhat spacy from defragging.

 

“I’ve been looking for you,” someone says from somewhere.

 

Distracted by a particularly tough slice of beef, Hwoarang does not realize he is being spoken to for another few moments. He turns when he feels a stare boring holes into his face.

 

“What,” he says, mouth still full.

 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” the person says again.

 

Hwoarang does not recognize the face of the man hovering beside him, but remembers the same quiet, smoky timbre of a criminal he met a while ago. Impeccable timing, really. He swallows his mouthful, then says in his most disapproving Baek-like tone, “I’m eating.”

 

“Don’t let me stop you,” says Kazama, then sits leisurely in the booth seat next to his.

 

Despite every muscle in his body wanting to hurl himself out of the restaurant and back into hiding, Hwoarang remains valiantly still and suffers. Baek _had_ warned him against a potential second meeting with the mysterious stranger who’d whisked off a prime Haenyo model, but he did not actually expect it to happen. He chews with significantly more vigor on the pieces of meat, hoping that his loud slurping will convey the message that he is _not_ pleased.

 

“I’m surprised to see that you’re still alive,” Kazama says finally when his own order of guksu has come in.

 

“You hold charming conversation,” Hwoarang says.

 

“I’ve been searching for you since the night I retrieved the Haenyo,” says Kazama, undeterred. He raises his left hand, taps his third and fourth finger on the granite counter twice, rings aglow. Hwoarang recognizes the jewelry as brackets equipped with sound-proofing modules, realizing that Kazama intends on having a very private conversation in a very public space, just because he can. “You’re a difficult individual to track down.”

 

“Well damn, I’d sure hope so.”

 

“And I believe we have mutual interests, especially regarding the incident at _Shocking Experience_.”

 

Hwoarang gives Kazama a _look_ before reaching over and tapping on the rings to deactivate the sound barrier for a moment. He orders a second serving with extra meat, then settles back into his seat as Kazama reactivates the barrier with a wry smile. “And, uh, what makes you think that I would want to work with you?” Hwoarang picks at the remains of his first meal—mostly vegetables. He then wonders, a bit belatedly, how Kazama had recognized him when he is not even wearing his real face right now.

 

“I’m privy to much of the knowledge that you seek,” Kazama says.

 

“How did you recognize me?”

 

Infuriatingly, Kazama only tilts his head. “I’ve been searching for a while. Some registers matched.”

 

Oh, Baek is going to kill him if he finds out that Hwoarang has left _traces_ all over the damn system. Hwoarang stares into his second bowl, suddenly anxious and in need of a distraction. He stuffs his face full of beef again so we won’t have to speak. And again. The flavor grows muted beneath the jittering of his nerves. For whatever reason, Kazama seems content with eating in the tense silence and maintains it until Hwoarang no longer can.

 

“So? You must have a reason for wanting to find me. If it’s a fight to the death, let me finish my dinner first.”

 

“Nothing of the sort,” Kazama says, looking pleased. “As a gesture of trust, I’ll give you the location to my current workshop. You can stop by, if you’d like, and I’ll be mask-free.”

 

He does not like the idea of stopping by, but Hwoarang feels less and less like he has a choice. Kazama slowly sounds off the address, the vague mask causing his facial features to shift between bland and blander. He walks back into the crowd afterwards, shoulders broad and confident. Ordinarily, Hwoarang is spectacularly terrible at remembering things people tell him verbally, but the information stays clear in his head even long after he has scribbled it onto some archaic notepad in his bedroom.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kazama’s eyes are dark and deep, the corners of his smile sharp as he lets Hwoarang in through the front door. He is dressed in loose-fitting black clothes that are no doubt expensive, moving with a sort of economy that suggests some sort of martial training. All of this had been hidden beneath masks and glamours. Hwoarang is not wearing a mask himself, but feels as though he should leave Kazama guessing for as long as possible. Over his skin, the glamour feels thick and oppressive. Kazama does not seem to care.

 

The place Kazama invited Hwoarang over to is in a modest corner section of Over-Seoul. He reassures Hwoarang that the entire hideout is shielded and infrared secure, the walls are reinforced, and that the windows are one-way. Temporary adjustments, since the condo is technically a rental, and normal civilians would be concerned to see such security measures in place.

 

Still, Hwoarang prefers Under-Seoul. Less overhead lights, less fake sky, less pretentious elite who think higher physical elevation has something to do with higher state of mind.

 

He makes a beeline for an open table with all manners of brackets scattered on top. Some of them look like salvaged bits from broken modules, others seem more polished, finished prototypes all with unique branding. Some are displayed on stands, smooth and ominous against the cluttered surface.

  
“You made these?” he says, trying not to seem impressed.

 

“Impressed?” Kazama replies, and Hwoarang scowls.

 

Kazama picks up one of the pieces—the bracket is large and unwieldy like an ill-fitting gauntlet. When he puts it on, it slims to fit the mold of his arm. How that Hwoarang looks closer, the claw-like glove distinctly resembles the patterns of the Haenyo’s armor. Cautious, he gestures at it. “So what’s it do?”

 

As Kazama flexes his fingers, his visage flickers between himself and a towering black demon. Hwoarang does not know whether the danger of the module is real or not, so he decides to poke it to find out. His index finger meets an expanse of skin the color of pitch. The illusion dissipates for a moment, then flickers up again.

 

“To anyone with enhanced or otherwise modified cybervision,” Kazama says, “what is a mere illusion to you becomes very real to them. Haenyo’s are masters are Diving into cyberspace—this module draws on the Haenyo’s technology to manifest into a real cyber entity.” The demon continues to speak, all white eyes and fangs and imposing horns and wings. Hwoarang thinks that he _might_ see how such a creature could be terrifying, but he just laughs at the silly mop of hair on its head. Demons of old never explained technology, they only slaughtered and destroyed and consumed the hearts of men. Some monster Kazama makes.

 

“Okay,” he says, activating his fourth module setting and grabbing at the demon’s wrist. “But can you do _this_.”

 

The demon disappears, vanquished.

 

Kazama looks down in surprise at the inert bracket for a few seconds before his eyes narrow with recognition. “Seems I am not the only one with illicit modifications.”

 

“I’ve been doing illegal shit my entire life, get in line.” Hwoarang crosses his arms, trying not to show that his processors are working to recover from his little stunt. His minimal cyber enhancements mean that he can only pull off so much at one time. Nullifying the effect of a strong module would be a sure way of overloading if done too often. “What’s even the point of terrorizing the general populace?”

 

“The module is not complete yet.” Kazama places the re-bulked bracket back into its stand. “Ideally, it would make long-distance Diving possible by allowing the wearer to traverse cyberspace while physically immobile.”

 

Which is an absolutely terrifying and terrible idea. Thankfully, Hwoarang has no qualms on voicing his opinions. The modern-day populace already believes that personal privacy simply is not worth the effort, and can cause actual detriment. If long-distance Dives were to become public knowledge… Well, the military has long since been trying to invent some form of it. They just have not released anything to the public, but it is certain they are building off the original HNyO models. HNyO, officially the Half-duplex Neural Override unit, later dubbed Haenyo during wartime.

 

 

The HNyO were created by fully organic researcher Jung Gurim in an attempt to fight against the technofied mechanical soldiers from the Western hemisphere. Quick, lethal Dives could ensure bloodless battles. Early, primitive forms of Dives left the victims either brain dead or fully incapacitated. Advanced HNyO forms allowed for seamless Dives that would leave the victim completely unaware and with a solid, unrecoverable gap in their memory. With further enhanced HNyO or any kind of technology capable of long-distance Dives, the government could pick off any potential opponent. Probably. Hwoarang is not that great at reading the minds of politicians, but he has a lot of ideas where this could go wrong.

 

“Sure hope you don’t get caught,” he says, sliding over to the next table. “There are plenty of people out there who would kill for an advancement like that.” Hwoarang then wonders, briefly, if Kazama detests his target that much. Enough to become a war machine himself.

 

They eventually move on from tinkering with Kazama’s work. Hwoarang realizes that the time with his mysterious host spent poring over the different brackets and their module effects may likely have been some fashion of showing off, but he isn’t sure what he is supposed to do about that. He then starts thinking about how _he_ had been showing off, and—then he wonders: how the hell did their supposed informational meeting turn into a dick measuring contest?

 

“I’m sure you already have some semblance of record on the MCMs,” Kazama says, drinking black coffee because he is most unfortunately boring. Hwoarang chews tapioca bubbles with relish, favoring those to the caffeine pellets less organic people like to put into their bubble tea. He has never had a large order of bubble tea _delivered_ to his front door, though—not to mention large jugs with at least five servings worth of milk tea and tapioca pearls.

 

“Of course,” Hwoarang bluffs. He _does_ have one compiled, but it is still largely incomplete. It had not taken long to fill the data from more publicly known models, but information regarding military operations has always been sealed tighter than a vacuum. He usually leaves most of the heavy hacking to Baek, since his technological limitations make it much more difficult to traverse through cyberspaces unnoticed.

 

That, and Baek has grounded him from plugging into their system to unearth other information until he is fully recovered from the defrag. The memory that Baek had extracted was largely corrupted and riddled with infinite loop errors that would continue until he crashed. Small wonder he had had such a headache after escaping. Hwoarang feels much better having that stuff _outside_ of his brain, but still has stalls when he tries to think back on the accident.

 

“I still don’t know how you expect me to trust you,” he says, eyeing the busy monitor running diagnostics on who-knows-what. “How will showing all of this to me benefit you? How do you know I won’t call the cops?”

 

Kazama laughs, a brief and low noise. “I don’t think you are capable of calling the police. Not with your record.”

 

“My _record_?” Hwoarang almost shouts but manages to contain his voice to an inside volume.

 

Kazama raises his hands in a placating gesture. Though his face is impassive, his eyes betray a hint of amusement. “Nothing too incriminating. For the most part.”

 

Hwoarang looks longingly out the window into the artificial day, wishing dearly for escape. He can almost hear Baek lecturing again on how to properly erase his presence and go over the basics of breaking and entering, sealing deals, and losing tails again. He decides that if things go badly with Kazama, he will just have to kill the other man and wipe every byte clean of dirt on him.

 

“Tell me what you know of the MCMs,” he segues tiredly. “Starting from the first harvest.”

 

Without argument, Kazama pulls up another screen, the floating graphics setting his face aglow with a green-blue sheen. To his right is a hologram of what seems to be the retrieved Haenyo’s body, zoomed in on the upper limbs where most of the important bits lie. Red blips and alerts pop up periodically, noting discrepancies and details. State of the art analytics technology, Hwoarang observes bitterly. He and Baek have pieced together an acceptable mainframe for their own work, but this display has him feeling extremely out of depth, and also very broke.

 

“Most of the MCMs you encountered are all within the range for combat series, oh-eight to twelve. A couple are in the normalcy series, oh-six and oh-seven. These can be customized easily, so we’ll disregard them for now,” Kazama says, pulling up a screen showing the five combat models. “The even numbers in the combat series signify models built more for sheer strength, while agility and adaptability are priorities for the odd numbers.” He waves the screen over to Hwoarang, who peers at the numbers and infographics curiously.

 

He has had encounters with all of these models, back when he was still training within a spec-ops unit down in Neo-Gwangju. Although Unified Corea has their own combat cyborg models, the military had encouraged training with technology from other countries for experience. Though MCM08 had been relatively easy to skirt around, the MCM10 and MCM12 models had been grueling to fight, tanky and built to hit with harder blows that even enhanced soldiers could hardly take. Without his modules, Hwoarang would be hard-pressed to face them now.

 

After reading some more, and when Hwoarang starts to see the words blurring together, he asks, “How difficult is it to override these units?”

 

“The bug?” Kazama taps at his nape with a finger, indicating where a blossom of poison and blood would emerge. At Hwoarang’s nod, he shrugs. “It would be difficult,” he says, “to anyone without the means. Normal programming, garbage or otherwise, can’t do anything to them.”

 

Hwoarang considers his next words very carefully in comparison to his usual, which is to say—not very much at all. “So, either you’re a rat within the Mishima Cybatsu, or you have a vendetta against the CEO _._ Normal people wouldn’t have access to _any_ —” He points at the many floating screens, the motion blurring into a sort of flailing wave, “of this. Much less know how to dismantle a Haenyo.”

 

“I would think,” Kazama says calmly, pulling down a panel towards Hwoarang, “that we are not normal people. At the very least, normal people do not exist in this sort of business.”

 

“Yeah,” Hwoarang says, staring. “Sure. Okay.” A blatant deflection if he has ever heard one, but he retreats for now. With enough research, perhaps he can even pull up some dirt on Kazama.

 

“I’ll link you into a copy of the information, if you are willing. After you’ve given a more thorough look, we can decide on a direction.” Kazama smiles thinly, his eyes daring Hwoarang to disagree. Frowning, Hwoarang lifts his hand to the data panel to stream the data in. “No worries, you won’t be downloading anything you cannot be rid of.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

For the better part of a week, Hwoarang’s mind is swimming with unanswered questions and paces and ideas that run into dead ends. Much of his brain is occupied with analyzing all the information he’d gleaned from Kazama’s digital information coffers, trying to piece the different models into the picture of all the DNA harvesting incidents and their underlying objective.

 

He still thinks that new cosmetisurgery procedures could be a hit, though.

 

Baek would not approve of him reaching out to old contacts, but as long as he is not engaging in deals it should be fine. He keeps telling this to himself as he reads through the details over and over, meets with outer-border informants who reek of chemicals and the outside world, observes shady deals from a few stories above while holding his breath.

 

He manages to gather the information of stray shipments shuttling to and from the Corean bay to the island of Kyushu, where they disappear further into the Japanese mainland. Another deep dive into underground meetings reveals some of the people behind the trade. With this discovery comes both a sense of dread and guilty excitement.

 

“No,” Baek says immediately when Hwoarang brings the subject up. “You’ve already sworn not to rejoin, and it is likely you would be killed on the spot if they recognize you.”

 

“I’m not rejoining,” Hwoarang argues. “I can go in disguise and I won’t get caught. You _know_ that the Hwa Eum Pa are notorious for their weapons trade in the south. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve expanded to other areas, cyborg assembly parts included.”

 

Baek heaves a heavy, weary sigh, always looking a decade older when he gazes at Hwoarang sadly. For a moment Hwoarang feels like a street rat again, wilting under the disappointed stare of his master after coming back from another scuffle in the street with his gang tattoo peeking through his shredded shirt. He could remove it with cosmetisurgery, Baek has mentioned time and time again. Now Hwoarang’s collar, where a fiery bird rests, aches.

 

“Our work is risky by trade, father,” he says, knowing that he is pulling a cheap move. “But I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. I promise to come back.”

 

Baek leaves wordlessly, his eyes shining, but his silence is both permission and condemnation enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (화음파) hwa eum pa* is fictional, but [organized criminal gangs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kkangpae) were/are prominent in korea


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

 

Hwoarang has not left Corean skydome in almost a decade. A decade since before his time overseas, hands dirty with stolen hardware, pockets stuffed with all manners of illegally obtained credits. He had been a good swimmer, able to dive farther down and for longer than the average human. If he goes looking, he could probably find some of his old stashes deep in some coastal caverns, accessible only through submersive travel.

 

Years away from that sort of environment has probably made him rusty, but he makes a mental note to keep them in mind for emergencies.

 

The majority of the population lives beneath the peak of the dome, give or take one and a half-ish standard deviations. The further out from the peak one is, the more noticeable the presence of pollution and pre-cyberage machinery. 

 

Older buildings heralded for their green efficiency and cutting edge architecture jut out from the seas, one after another. Quick, skyscraping, ragged succession. Like the set of a metal jaw caging the earth, or caged by the earth. The crumbling remains of Jeju naught but a sunken, smoking black heart well below sea level.

 

About 430 kilometers south of the Seoul Nexus, the beauty of clear skies begins to fade. It is less of a glitch and more so the lack of resources directed out of the central body. At two units of deviation, the skydome is free of the sheen of performative normalcy. Hwoarang steps off the southbound light rail at Busan and takes a secure line the rest of the way off the continent, passing the few automated guards. Not unusual, considering no one really has a reason to travel past the Busan Parallel. No one with a legal reason, anyways. Good thing he has a lot of experience in that turf. 

 

He slips the transit coordinator a few extra credits, just because he knows what the business is like. The coordinator herself is either mute, or cautious. Perhaps a mix of both. Her gaze is a dull one, a hard grey like the sky from the glamour tech she wears. Her mask is like an expressionless silver mirror. In the reflection he sees the bland mask he wears; just two completely normal, inconspicuous people, doing completely inconspicuous work outside the Busan Parallel.

 

And like anyone with an inkling of common sense, they turn away as soon as the deal is done. Hwoarang makes a bigger effort in scrambling his signature as he walks up the 57 degree incline of a former residential tower, somewhere along the southeastern coast of what used to be the Jeju city hydroplant complex. He peers down at the frothing waves, knowing for sure that some of this best stashes lay past the derelict turbines. But perhaps it would be best not to attempt anything with the waves this choppy.

 

He reaches the tip of the building. Now at the edge of the world, he looks up. There is no serene, glittering starry night sky—in its stead is a grim overcast green-grey. The clouds look heavy. Hwoarang will have to leave the dome fully suited to avoid the scalding, if not acid, rain.

 

Hwoarang sits heavily on his perch, toying with a familiar, dangerous light at his fingertips. Static-fire-ice, brighter than a quasar to those who know to look. Far off in the distance, and perhaps slightly submerged, comes an answering flash. 

 

Like a once-forgotten craving, anticipation curls low and warm in his gut.

 

 

* * *

 

 

As any reasonable individual going undercover would, Hwoarang has prepared a number of disguises within disguises within disguises. They cannot be too similar, cannot be too normal. Normal would seem abnormal where he is going, so it is best to don an image with just a bit of wear and tear. Maybe the slightest edge that hints at something darker to interest the higher ups.

 

Nothing too heavy, either. He will be wearing them for the foreseeable future, so he has to be careful about not overloading. Just enough to show he (kind of) knows what he is getting into, has maybe a little experience in the undernet, but not enough to be a threat. A typical grunt who is good at following orders and not much else. The brass like that.

 

“Jungho,” he hedges when an Eye asks for his name.

 

The Eye sits back slightly, lips pursed at the obvious omission of a surname, looks him up and down. Taps at his neck, testing him. He fidgets with his atmo-suit, acting.

 

“Why did you come looking for us?” asks the Eye. Her glamour shrouds her presence in something ominous. Good for hiding in, and also good for unnerving people who do not know any better. 

 

“Got… bored,” says Hwoarang. “Someone tipped me off.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Seuk,” he says without hesitation. It is true that Seuk is an active Finger within the Seoul Nexus, but he has a terrible memory. He believes anything that his memory logs will tell him. Hwoarang took some time to bug them just a little. Jungho is now a vague, but recollectable memory should they contact Seuk about a new JH in their ranks.

 

The Eye is pleased, though she does not show it. Hwoarang thinks he might have seen her as a new recruit some time ago, but it’s always difficult to tell with all the modifications some members go through.

 

“Have you killed someone before?”

 

Hwoarang nods. Jungho has killed three. One in self defense. Two from drug-related accidents. He does not enjoy it, but knows when it is necessary. He is handy with a customized knife with basic hacking capabilities. Grew up in the dredges of Under-Busan with a few misdemeanors on his record. Left handed.

 

“You’re going to be doing a lot of that,” says the Eye. “If you behave.”

 

“That’s fine,” he says. “Put me to work.”

 

The Eye winks.

 

Work turns out to be simple guard duty at a shed somewhere east of Old Fukuoka, most of which had been lost to the sea in the initial coastal floating a couple centuries ago. The area has since adapted to the frequent swelling sea levels during monsoon seasons. Much of Old Fukuoka lies several hundred kilometers below sea level, and the new city is further inward and built around a complex tower of hovertech. The collateral damage from earthquakes and tsunamis is nothing but a terror of ages past.

 

Hwoarang is not fluent in Wakoku-style Universal by any means, but regional dialects don’t stray _too_ much from the whole language if one has a grasp of the general structure. As Jungho, on the other hand, he acts like he cannot understand the intricacies of the exchange between some of the older members. With minimal enhancements and little experience of language outside of the Corean dialect, he does not even have a built-in translator.

 

They are testing him, seeing whether he is the patient or impatient type. Impatience will get him sent off to some dangerous “important” missions, where he will probably be used as bait and get killed. Patience will reward him with other chances. 

 

“What are we guarding?” It is an insensitive question. Hwoarang, too, wants to test the people he will be working with. The person paired with him at the northeastern exit is mostly synthetics and metal. 80-20, at the very least. He seems to be the only one out of the six assigned who is fluent in Corean dialect.

 

With an almost offended glance his way, the member snorts. “We don’t know.”

 

Jungho is a first-timer to organized crime. He has his knife on him, but has never actually gotten his hands on a basic pulse rifle before. Perhaps he is feeling a bit trigger happy and also terrified of the consequences. He wants friends and excitement, gets a little chatty when he is nervous. He does not know that there are probably several guns trained on him in case he acts out of line.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Do you know how to shut up?” His partner turns, leveling a bright cyan glare that pierces through the smooth slate of his mask. “The Ears hear everything. Learn to do as your told.”

 

The shed, Hwoarang knows from an earlier scan, houses a number of valuables from Tsushima, freshly scavenged. It seems like a mix of pure, unmolded gold and some high-end modules from the Japanese mainland. Within the twilight hours, someone is scheduled to pick up their shipments. Innocuous boxes labeled 「NEW新 FUKU福-OKA岡 FISH魚 CO会」 in dark blue print.

 

Two clients show up. Hwoarang squints while trying to make out any details, but is sure that one of them is a MCM12. The two clients go. The deal is successful, uneventful and not enough to sate Jungho’s itch to _do_ something. At the face he makes, his partner sneers, mask warping around the expression, as if to say _you don’t know what you’re getting into_.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Hwa Eum Pa is not kind to its members. Not in the sense that it curates a sense of belonging or family like some of the other gangs do. Did. Might still do. Much of it is competitive, a constant fight to prove inherent betterness, inherent _fire_.

 

Of course, internal conflict is heavily frowned upon. That’s what the organized fights are for.  

 

Nothing has changed in that regard, Hwoarang thinks, but things feel a bit messier than they used to be. Thankfully, Hwoarang has no intentions of showing anyone up in a fight, and does a damn good job of acting like an average grunt who can stab and throw, but not much more. Two weeks after his initial job and some mediocre performance, one of the Ears invites him to watch the matches. 

 

In the lower levels of New Fukuoka, far from the unfriendly conditions of the surface, people have no need for their atmo-suits. Patches of skin flash with the bright red-orange-gold of phoenixes. Limbs made of precious metals, more for cosmetic purposes than any combat utility, refract the low ultraviolet lights into dizzying kaleidoscopes on the walls. It smells like sweat and ozone. Hwoarang wets his lips, trying to decide whether he has missed this scene or not.

 

“So, Jungho,” the Ear says, mouth crackling with electric smoke. “What brings you to the Hwa Eum Pa? You interested in fighting?” _What’s your vice?_

 

Before them, two 50-50 members wrestle on the ground. Some time ago, a knife had gone flying and slipped clean into someone’s forearm. The woman had plucked it out, watched the injury seal and tossed the knife back into the ring with a loud jeer.

 

“I like knives and, uh, making things,” says Hwoarang. The Ear is listening, casually leaning against the wall at the back of the crowd. “I want to work with modules if I can. The more exciting the better.”

 

The Ears are responsible for processing all this information. Reports back to the brass about his potential and his possible roles. Hwoarang does not plan on staying long enough to get another role and _another_ tattoo, but it’s good that they are paying attention to him. The further he can get into the fold, the quicker he can grab the intel he needs and book it back to Seoul.

 

“Exciting, hm?” the Ear blows out another plume of smoke. Pink and orange static dances in and around it, like dawn through the rain. ‘Excitement’ is something that a lot of new recruits search for anyways. Hwoarang internally battles between piquing their interest or boring them enough to leave him out of the spotlight. Both ways could go well. Both ways could go badly.

 

“Like Diving, maybe,” he says unsurely. The Ear does not show any increase in attention outwardly, but his gaze grows ten degrees hotter. “I don’t know too much about it, but maybe with some tweaks to hacking and modules, we could do it too.”

 

“Big dreams, kid,” the Ear chuckles lowly, and pushes himself off the wall in a trail of glittering smoke. The match between the 50-50s ends with raucous cheering. His breath is sweet and warm. “Take it easy, hm?” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

On an early morning just after the last redeye guard shift at the New Fukuoka base, Hwoarang receives a ping from a closed line. There really is only one person it could possibly be. Instantly, his day feels simultaneously more exhilarating and soured. 

 

[ENCRYPTED MESSAGE]

 

 _Busy_ , he responds after a few minutes of sitting in silence. The other three people sharing the room are fast asleep. At the very least, it seems that he has covered his tracks well.

 

[ENCRYPTED MESSAGE]

 

 _share breakthrough when i get back. contact you then_.

 

[ENCRYPTED MESSAGE]  
[ENCRYPTED FILE]

 

Hwoarang very nearly falls out of his bunk. At the sudden rustling of blankets, the person on the bottom bunk gives a startled snore-snort. He chooses not to reply, but Kazama must be feeling smug since no further messages show up.

 

Damned direct link to Mishima Cybatsu databases. Hwoarang had sort of been expecting silence from overseas, not a loud and sudden access to so many relevant cases. After making sure he has a stable, unnoticeable connection, he stares at the ceiling while streaming in a small portion of the available data. 

 

He has to be careful with how much of an online footprint he leaves behind. Not enough of a footprint, and the Eyes will immediately know he is hiding something. Too much, and they will know that he is snooping around. A remarkable influx of unidentified data would be a red flag.

 

Hwoarang pulls up a small monitor with daily news and plays that near his head, staring into the images unseeingly as he combs through other data. It is a good while before someone walks into the room and triggers the power system, flooding the room with bright light. By then, Hwoarang has gotten a small glimpse into some of the large scale biotech projects within the Cybatsu, past, recent and current. All the information makes him feel somewhat lightheaded, truth be told, so his surprised, not-quite-awake stare at the door is not an act.

 

One of the Teeth have come to fetch them. Something about scoping out more territories. As any good criminal organization would do, they are running the fresh batch of recruits ragged. Some of the kids here are young, anxious and desperate to prove themselves. The kid sharing Hwoarang’s bunk is probably no older than legal age.

 

“No, no,” says the Tooth, blocking Hwoarang with an arm when he tries to follow the gaggle of barely-awake recruits pulling their suits on. “Not you. You’re working somewhere else today.”

  
“Why?” he blurts.

 

The Tooth simply sneers and gestures at him to follow.

 

As it turns out, they want to learn just how much he knows about modules and the inherent building process. _A lot_ is the correct answer, but that is also the dangerous answer. He only gives a fumbling truths when people partnered with him ask him for explanations on certain machine behavior.

 

Hwa Eum Pa, too, is interested in the MCMs. Members run into them quite frequently in both legal and illegal deals. Hwoarang tries pressing for more information, only to be shut down immediately. They do not trust him enough to give him sensitive intel, but that alone tells him that there is definitely something with the gang and its business with the Mishima Cybatsu. 

 

“This one,” the Tooth nudges him, pointing at a dismembered arm piece. It is slender with some wear on its extremities. Some of the carbon fiber has been peeled back to show the fried circuitry within. Hwoarang instantly recognizes it as one from a MCM09 unit.

 

“I think,” he says, “Oh-nine?”

 

“So you’ve experience with MCMs,” says the Tooth, pushing over another arm. He nods when Hwoarang answers Model 13 correctly.

  
“You run into them everywhere. Saw them all the time in Busan, more Under than Over, though.”

 

“Everywhere indeed,” the Fist mutters. The glowing strips of her hair almost whip Hwoarang in the face when she turns. The mask she wears is purely cosmetic, flickering all shades of color that would be distracting to the organic eye and outright dazzling to synthetics. He stares at the patterns until the Tooth elbows him sharply. “We need people who can identify the models on first glance. Misidentification is not an option.”

 

“Five,” Hwoarang says incorrectly, when the Tooth pushes over an MCM06 spinal strip. The differences are subtle enough to the untrained eye. Either the Tooth and Fist do not know the differences, or they are silently disappointed at Jungho’s lack of expertise. He keeps a seventy percent accuracy streak and hopes it isn’t too suspicious.

 

After the Tooth and Fist get bored of interrogating him, which is another several hours of staring at fried MCM pieces, Hwoarang is sent on basic perimeter patrol. He is only half paying attention to his actual surroundings; the other half is browsing through the treasure trove of the Cybatsu’s information. 

 

As he rounds the last section of his assigned route, there is a rather strange signature to his west. It’s very faint, a mess of a pattern that does not register as anything proper. The vague trail left behind cuts off right before the drop into the sea, as sharp of a disconnect as the edges of New Fukuoka’s floating platforms. It is so scrambled, Hwoarang realizes, that it would only be possible to detect with some prior contact.

 

It is old, too. Far enough out that perhaps it had led to more than a cliff edge. From a quick analysis Hwoarang estimates maybe thirty years. Most signatures would fade after five, just since the discharge rates are so quick. Thirty or more is practically unheard of. 

 

Double checking that no one is watching and that his actions are sufficiently glamoured, Hwoarang snags a sample of the signal. Overlays it against the thousands of different signatures he has encountered and familiar with. There is no genuine pattern, but a few pieces seem to match the same registers as a rogue MCM.

 

“Nothing out of the usual,” he says to the Eye for that particular shift. She gives him a cursory glance, asks to see his (tampered) visual logs for confirmation and lets him go when she sees nothing suspect.

 

“Dismissed,” she says.

 

“Where’s the dining hall again?” he asks. She points to her left.

 

His neck still prickles from where she had grabbed his nape and siphoned the logs into her own stream, mostly from how abrasive Hwa Eum Pa is with sharing basic data. Privacy is hard to come by, especially for lower tiers and less technologically attuned individuals.

 

 _Growing soft_ , he grumbles to himself. It never used to be an issue.

 

A Tooth shows up late into the night cycle, when most of the people in Hwoarang’s room have returned from their respective duties, probably to make sure no one has snuck out. Hwoarang is alone on his bunk, and the others have long since passed out, reeking of sterilizer.

 

“Hey,” he says. “Where is Hansol?”

 

The Tooth gives him a sharp look. He looks ten levels of irritated and exhausted. “He quit.”

 

“Quit?” Hwa Eum Pa does not let people _quit_. They probably killed him for some reason. “Why?”

 

“Are you always this chatty, Jungho?” the Tooth says. The warning is clear in his voice. Hwoarang subtly tries to take in any additional signals he might be giving off and gets a whiff full of residual pleasure salon static. “You’re looking to be a promising recruit. Would be a shame if you didn’t make it.”

 

“Oh,” Hwoarang says outwardly, all while inwardly trying to identify the kind of static. “I am?”

 

“Goodnight,” the Tooth says, and the door slides shut.

 

 

* * *

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

 

The nearest pleasure salon is just a quick ride away, nestled between the fashion and cosmetech hubs near the top of that tower. Hwoarang manages to trace the signal all the way back and remembers the old tradition of hooking young recruits onto the static. Better to keep them desperate and obedient. The addiction can result in a variety of behaviors, but usually it keeps them eager to listen and eager for their reward.

 

But Hansol had ‘quit.’

 

Hwoarang is more than one hundred percent sure that he had been killed by a Haenyo.

 

It makes sense. Hwa Eum Pa is looking for people to identify the MCMs on the spot—an admission from a higher rank that he probably should not have heard. Other recruits, those who have been here maybe a few weeks longer, have been whispering about the sudden disappearances of some. Either because they quit, or got nosy and neutralized.

 

Sending out fresh faces to lure out a Haenyo, perhaps even catch one in the act. Getting their hands on technology of that tier, much less government-owned would be an immense asset to their underground activities. Hwoarang imagines that they would start working on modules of the same idea as Kazama’s.

 

Or… they could be working towards whatever goals the Haenyo are. Concerning, but not surprising. He will find out soon enough.

 

The next time there is a scheduled fight, Hwoarang decides to sneak into the Hwa Eum Pa archives. New Fukuoka is far from the gang’s home turf, but they do have some physical secrets squirreled away somewhere. It is a matter of finding the location, getting in unnoticed and getting out unnoticed. 

 

 _Easy_ , Hwoarang tells himself. _Whatever could go wrong with getting on the bad side of a gang that specializes in weapons trade?_

 

While hacking an Ear fresh from a salon, pliant and drunk on static, he jumps through all sorts of loopholes and evades security traps of signature Hwa Eum Pa make. The knowledge is scant, bright twinkle within the mesh of other gang activity and concern, but Hwoarang grasps it as carefully and quickly as he can. 

 

He opens his eyes, slightly disoriented, and lays the Ear back on the ground where they had been. His hand tingles from the disconnection and feels sweaty. He peels the hacking glove off and stows it in a secure pocket.

 

The secrets lie buried with Tsushima. Half of them, at least. The other half lies buried with Jeju.

 

Hwoarang is fully aware that an excursion of that scale is much too long and obvious for him to maintain a neutral position here. Instead, he decides to open the secure line between him and Kazama that he has kept firmly disconnected these past few weeks.

 

 _investigate underwater tsushima\jeju bases,_ he says. _hnyo activity. also,_

 

He attaches an old map of his stashes from the Jeju complex, as well as a copy of what he could decrypt of the strange signal from before.

 

 _by two cycles_ , he sends. Not a lot of time for Kazama to work, but fair is fair. It just means he will also have to gather what he can before absconding in the ugliest fashion imaginable. He wonders if he should leave a greeting for his old friends, just to spite them.

 

 _1,_ is Kazama’s response. Pleased, Hwoarang closes the line again and sets a reminder for 30 hours.

 

Now that he is sure of the information to be found, Hwoarang finds little reason to stay much longer. He plans to do all his busiest, most suspicious work as soon as he can find someone to knock out and drag to his bunk. A quick glamour will make it seem as though he were in bed and not rifling through confidential data caches.

 

He looks back down at the Ear he had just hacked. Not ideal, but they will have to do. Once he manages to drag them in unnoticed to his bunk, he sheds Jungho’s glamour and slips it over the unconscious Ear.

 

Hwoarang walks out of the room as Hyuksoo, an Ear awaiting promotion and member of two and a half years. He slips into a lazier, looser gait as befitting of their character. When he leaves the base a few minutes later, the Eye he salutes idly to notices nothing amiss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

As much as Hwoarang had missed the regular deep-ocean assignments from his prime (he feels old now), he definitely had not missed how confining the diving suits feel. They are designed differently from the atmo-suits, more geared towards pressure and warmth regulation than the cooling and protective focuses.

 

He slips into the sea twenty some kilometers away from the New Fukuoka base. The closer he gets to Old Fukuoka, the harder it is to navigate. There is hardly any clear light, so Hwoarang has to rely on the infrared goggles of his suit. Although the warming tech is sufficient for the rest of his body, his fingers feel like ice as he pierces through the murk.

 

Old city debris drift around, no longer tethered to their purposeful architecture. The city that had clearly been the inspiration for much of New Fukuoka’s infrastructure has a deceptively soft appearance from afar, smothered in algae and the swaying tendrils of giant carnivorous kelp. Sections of the city, still grounded, sway in the ocean currents. The ominous creaking of old, rusty metal shatters the unsettling, buoyant silence of underwater. 

 

The city almost looks like a miniature tank decor, swallowed by dark seaweed as it is. Hwoarang considers exploring a bit more through the jagged glass caverns of old technology, but figures that something he does not want to meet probably lives there.

 

He just needs to get to one of the old underwater transit lines. Before Old Fukuoka had fully submerged, the government had invested a significant portion of funds into developing underwater connections to smaller islands. Eventually the project had been shut down, just as they had extended to the Ryukyu islands. The water had simply risen too quickly, too ferociously.

 

Hwoarang swims all the way to Iki island through the tunnels. Hwa Eum Pa is only interested in the submerged island as a midpoint, so it is easy to bypass the few guards. It is harder, however, the closer he gets to Tsushima.

 

There are few entry points to the important parts of the submerged island. Much of the buildings have been left to rot and rust and some weird metal-consuming fish species. From what he can see, there is no activity anywhere but the western coast. Small bubbles, like mimicry of a skydome, are barely visible, but clear barriers.

 

He decides to infiltrate in the way he knows best: straight through the front doors.

 

Hwa Eum Pa does not have have a lot of manpower this far out from their base, so Hwoarang estimates it will be three hours at most before anyone notices that the guards at the north gate are very much missing. He is feeling impatient, and decides that he will take the same approach to any guards he encounters inside, too.

 

Which is how he ends up wearing another glamour of a young woman with one fully synthetic leg, now armed with a pulse rifle.

 

Hwoarang quickly discovers that the Hwa Eum Pa are hiding some nasty secrets underwater.

 

Many of the rooms he passes by stink of ozone and ash. There are tons of corpses, which honestly is not too out of the norm—except that they are completely drained of unique signatures. Haenyo victims, dozens after another, line the walls. Knowing that there must be more to a simple _storage_ of bodies, Hwoarang quickens his pace through the halls. He is in the middle of “following” his guard route in a camera blindspot when he runs into another living person. Not wearing a uniform and clearly heavily masked.

 

“Intruder,” he says lamely in a voice distinctly not his own, pointing his gun at the stranger. Shooting or shouting would result in other guards coming here, and where would that leave him? He feels very un-guard-like.

 

Silent, the unknown assailant charges up an attack—an encroaching, terrifying darkness and two glowing moons. Hwoarang’s initial panic fades and he rolls his eyes before dropping the rifle completely.

 

“Stop that,” he says, lunging in to grab at the attacker’s arm, and lets out a harsh breath as he disables the module. His processors flush out unnecessary weight and his glamour sloughs off in streams of electricity. His head and spine feel hot and uncomfortable as his body tries to recover from the sudden spike in output.

 

“Your glamour’s gone,” Kazama says dumbly, wearing a face and voice too rough for how he actually looks. His arm is sheathed in black, fingers like claws. Hwoarang pushes the hand away from him.

 

“Well, I don’t know,” Hwoarang panting. His shoulder cramps for a moment, and he pulls back to massage at the muscle. “I think I prefer that over being dead.”

 

“Wasn’t going to kill you.”

 

Hwoarang gives him a strange look, then turns his back to retrieve the rifle. “Your module working enough to be using in public?”

 

“No,” Kazama says, then shrugs. “Was working on getting the last of the intel you wanted.”

 

“Clearly you weren’t fast enough. By the way, we only have a few hours before we need to leave. I may or may not have taken out some guards out.”

 

The stare Kazama directs at him is not _welcome_ , per se, but Hwoarang finds it refreshing to be seen as himself after weeks of disguises. After a few moments, he also sheds his glamour. Probably out of courtesy, though Hwoarang couldn’t really care less.

 

“The sample that you sent,” Kazama starts quietly.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I know what it’s from.”

 

“Cutting straight to the point, I see,” Hwoarang says. “This is why I tolerate you.”

 

Kazama pauses, jaw working as he tries to think about how to word his findings. Hwoarang is still recovering from the module shutdown, so his vision flickers with sparks as he glares back. His furious blinking must warrant some kind of concern. He waves it off.

 

“Should finish the work here before anything,” he says, pointedly looking at the end of the hallway under camera surveillance. “You got stealth tech?”

 

“How fast are they at noticing bad security feed?” is Kazama’s answer. 

 

He grins, already re-glamouring himself. Kazama’s eyes track his every movement as he continues down the hall as though there had been no incident. He pulls a distracting mask back on and opens the line between them.

 

“If I take out the guards watching them, not very.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They split for the next few hours. 

 

Hwoarang is in his element again, dropping old glamours in favor of the guards he passes by and subsequently knocks out. The back of his head buzzes with an impending headache, probably in protest of being the most process-intensive that he has been in years. He ignores it for now. The sooner he finishes being a distraction and snooping around, the sooner Kazama gets whatever data he is after, the sooner he can take a stars damned nap.

 

He comes across some unsettling things while knocking down the guards one by one. He figures that if he can get every guard unconscious, there will be no one to notice the lack of guards. Barring the security system, at least, but Kazama can take care of that.

 

Biotech experimentation is what they like to call it. They being the big corporates, the government and all those wealthy lobbyers in favor of a more technological future. There is a lab that reeks to an awful degree of sterilizer and other chemicals. Hwoarang cannot help but make a face when he first steps into it, not bothering to hide from the camera.

 

The room is smooth, shiny steel in all dimensions. Machinery whirs quietly, flashing with subtle tones of red-blue-green and yellow-orange-yellow. Numerous phials of soft blue and green liquids hang by the hundreds in racks. After reading the basic descriptions of _name, age, ratio_ , Hwoarang is quick to realize that this is all DNA. 

 

He is in the middle of debating whether it would be a good idea to smash everything or not when Kazama speaks over the line.

 

_“Extracted the data I needed. Where are you?”_

 

“Some weird lab, east wing,” Hwoarang says. He makes a disgruntled noise when he sees something in the corner. “There’s a Haenyo here. I think it’s sleeping?”

 

_“Don’t touch it. I can’t disable its security measures with what they have here.”_

 

“What good are you for,” Hwoarang sniffs, creeping closer. The dormant weapon is curled into an odd position within its tube, hooked up to a fascinating number of wires that extend to various bigger machines. The container is filled with an odd-colored fluid. Not quite dark enough to be blood, but eerie enough. “There’s a bunch of harvested DNA in here, also. Should I smash it?”

 

_“I’m more than sure that would call for unwanted attention.”_

 

“I mean, all the guards are knocked out. But okay.”

 

Lined up on the sides of the Haenyo are various bodies as well. Shriveled corpses lay before them in sterilized containers. It takes Hwoarang a second before the mortification kicks in. The harvested DNA is being used to recreate something. The results do not look entirely human, oddly morphed into somethings with too many eyes and skin that looks more like metal than flesh, and not very complete either.

 

 _Mishima Kazuya Z-077_ , reads one label in standard scientific Universal. _Mishima Kazuya Z-078_ , reads another. The room holds ten of them, all in various stages of in/completion.

 

“Hey, uh,” he says quietly, feeling very much caged in a room full of monstrosities. “How close are you.”

  
_“ETA two minutes. Why?”_

 

“Make it one,” Hwoarang says. The creature to his left stirs, third eye opening slowly. He cranks up his stealth module to maximum, hoping that he blurs into the mirror-perfect steel surroundings seamlessly. The creature does not seem to notice him, but Hwoarang still takes the utmost caution in backing out and not bumping into anything on his way to the entrance.

 

Kazama makes it in one minute, announcing his presence with the loud unsealing of the entrance door. He sees Hwoarang standing just behind the corner and opens his mouth to speak—but Hwoarang holds a fingers up to his lips, then points outside.

 

“I think I’m hallucinating,” is the first thing he says once they are outside of the lab, dismissing the unnerving sensation of heavy static and energy as his nerves.

 

“Why? Did I grow horns?” Kazama reaches up to his head.

 

“Haenyo,” Hwoarang continues. “And weird monsters.” He pulls up the scan he took of the room and zooms into an image of one of them, shoving it into Kazama’s face. “They were all the same but kinda different, I mean, in that some of them looked less complete or something.” Hwoarang stops to take a breath, then takes in Kazama’s slack-jawed expression. “Hey, what adjustments did you make to the security system?”

 

“I shut them all off,” Kazama says belatedly, looking at Hwoarang before going back to staring at the image. “Power should be down soon after we leave. Thirty minutes.”

 

“Just out of curiosity,” Hwoarang says. “Did any of those settings have to do with the lab? Power to distribution of chemical deterrents and stasis generators?”

 

Kazama is slow to respond, but the realization seems to dawn on him also. “Yes.” He gives Hwoarang an unreadable look. “You leave first. I need to go in and check something.”

 

“That thing was waking up,” says Hwoarang. “Not a good idea? Unless I’m misunderstanding that you want to come out of this alive. If so, give me the data you got or else.”

 

Kazama reaches to his ear and unhooks a silver loop, pressing the hard bit of metal into Hwoarang’s hand.

 

“Ah,” says Hwoarang.

 

“What, I’m not dying,” says Kazama. “That’s the key to submersible I took here. Won’t be hard to find for you. Bring it up front.”

 

“I’m being relegated to driving duty,” Hwoarang says, feeling somewhat incredulous, but Kazama has already stepped into the lab again.

 

He stands motionless for a good minute, trying to pull his senses together. He snaps out of it when the lights dim dramatically, remembering that Kazama had said thirty minutes to a complete power shutdown of the facility. Less than thirty minutes to get his ass out, find the submersible and play chauffeur for the rich cyborg boy.

 

Hwoarang finds the ride. For once, Kazama has seems to have blended subterfuge with minimality. The submersible is nowhere near the top of the market, but he cannot help but feel a bit resentful that he had _swum_ here and while Kazama had stayed dry.

 

 _Rich prick_ , he thinks when there is ten minutes left to the shutdown and no sign of him. Patience has never been one of Hwoarang’s virtues, though, so he goes back in.

 

The smell of blood fills his senses the second he steps back into the base. It does not smell like _normal_ blood, with all its sharpness and coppery tinge. Not even like the acrid alkaline used for a lot of the synthetics. This blood stinks of something dark and putrid and _cloying_.

 

He finds Kazama not too far from the entrance, struggling against one of the creatures from earlier. It towers over him, unbalanced from burn injuries.

 

Hwoarang fires the pulse rifle at the back. The creature drops Kazama and fixes its many eyes on Hwoarang.

 

“Ew,” says Hwoarang, and shoots it in the forehead. Something dark bursts from its chest right after, and it takes Hwoarang a moment to realize that Kazama had just punched a hole straight through its heart.

 

It takes him another moment to realize that Kazama is missing an arm.

 

“You’re an absolute bastard,” he says, retrieving the torn limb from some distance away and shoving Kazama towards the entrance. “Hurry before we get drowned here.”

 

Aboard the submersible and en route back to the Corean peninsula with auto navigation, Kazama slouches on the control panel, not bothering to take an actual seat. He smells of blood and chemicals, and also like a strong thunderstorm. He clutches at his shoulder with his left arm, and it is difficult to distinguish his own skin from the Haenyo bracket he wears. Hwoarang is beginning to get the feeling that it isn’t a detachable one.

 

“If you want me to repair your mess,” Hwoarang says, waving Kazama’s dismembered arm in front of his face. It’s heavy. Minimal blood, since all the synthetic vessels have sealed themselves off. He feels oddly as though he is swinging around the world’s most expensive prosthetic. “You’ll need to give me specifications.”

 

For a moment Kazama is silent, staring impassively at Hwoarang even as an encrypted manual pings at the corner of his vision. He opens the file distractedly, pulling himself closer to the sparking disconnect as he skims the blueprint and structural integrity. Complicated, sure, but not the worst he has dealt with.

 

With a sigh, he motions at Kazama to seat himself. Preferably somewhere flat. Only the slightest bit unsteady, Kazama slowly backs up, away from the control panel, and slides down the nearby wall with his legs splayed before him. Hwoarang does quick once-over of the alignment before plopping down next to Kazama.

 

“You seem to know a lot about repairs,” Kazama says curiously, watching him work. “Even when you’re 20-80 and shouldn’t have to deal with much.”

 

Hwoarang is quiet for a bit, then a bit longer. He chooses to ignore the obvious stare leveled on his face in favor of glaring at the fraying wires and flashes of gold circuitry. He carefully starts threading the wires and connecting the fine strands manually. “Someone I know is also 50-50. Does dangerous work, so.” He shrugs the best he can with both hands delicately involved. “Don’t go thinking that I learned just for you.”

 

“I would never,” says Kazama, voice oddly quiet and close to his ear. The angle is weird, with Hwoarang half-leaning against the wall and squinting into the complex circuitry of Kazama’s shoulder. He will have to do a lot of follow-up cleaning, just to make sure none of the organic bits develop any rot.

 

“Hey,” says Hwoarang.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Let me borrow your eyes for a sec,” Hwoarang squints harder at the tangled gap of metal-flesh-vessel between his fingers. The flickering overhead lights do not really help the situation, either. “Can’t see for shit.”

 

With an amused hum, Kazama reaches his attached hand to Hwoarang’s neck, mindful of the sharp claws. There is a brief moment of static discharge as the vision software connects, and all of a sudden there are a bunch of AR diagnostics overlaid on the technology before him. It becomes a lot easier to distinguish the individual wires from each other, which are labeled accordingly. The sealed veins and vessels are outlined through the synthetic flesh with guidelines of attachment.

 

He works in silence for a few minutes, impending headache long forgotten. His fingers have gone numb, exposed to too much static and some other power surges. He is hungry, too. Really wants some good galbi-tang.

 

“That was my father,” Kazama says out of the blue.

 

“Sure,” Hwoarang says, connecting another wire. He stops. “Wait, what?”

 

“That was my father,” Kazama repeats. “Or an imperfect clone of him, rather. It all makes sense now.”

 

“ _You_ are not making sense.” Grunting, Hwoarang goes back to squinting at his work. The wires are done. He cannot do anything about the nerves until they reconnect on their own. A few of the vessels still need reattachment.

 

“There’s a company called the G-Corp. It’s owned by my father, who used to be in charge of the Mishima Cybatsu.” Mishima. The name clicks. Hwoarang hums to show that he is listening to a degree. “He’s dead. Which is why the research makes sense. The G-Corp are relying on the MCMs for subterfuge work and a subsequent scapegoat. Ow.”

 

“Wuss,” Hwoarang mutters.

 

“He probably left plans behind to recreate his body in a worst case scenario. His DNA isn’t what I would call normal, though. So let’s just say that there would be a lot of experimentation involved.”

 

“So he’s using the Haenyo to harvest DNA,” Hwaorang says. Kazama nods. “Under the guise of another company’s nefarious intents so that he can perfect his weird DNA reconstruction and gain his full body back in the form of whatever we saw back there. And he’s also currently dead.” He pauses to look at Kazama. “Am I missing anything?”

 

“No,” Kazama says. “That’s everything.”

 

Hwoarang looks down at his completed repair, then back up at Kazama. The headache is in full force now, and the visual enhancements are not helping him any. “I need a nap,” he says, and promptly passes out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He dreams of black static. It crawls up his arms, warm, enticing, beckoning-want-want- _want_ —

 

Something is watching him in his sleep. _Damn sleep paralysis demon_ , he thinks, hoping that it can read his thoughts. _Go away, idiot_.

 

The black static wraps around him like a crackling wave, wraps around him in a desperate embrace.

 

 _Let me sleep_ , he thinks stubbornly. Tries to move his arms, his legs. A warm hand at the back of his neck.

 

He feels his breath leave in a heavy exhale. He breathes back in but finds that it is not air. Nothing but the cold, smothering unknown. Everything of an electrifying, pleasant darkness. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes to the smell of a very particular blend of tea.

 

“Hell,” he groans, turning over in his blankets to better press his entire face into the pillow. “Baek I don’t want tea for breakfast.”

 

“He’s preparing you lunch, actually,” Kazama says, and very quickly dodges the flurry of blankets that rears up. Hwoarang glares meanly at him, trying to understand why this man is in his home. His head feels heavy and full of static, almost like he had just gotten a deep cleaning and a defrag without his knowing.

 

“You’re in my room,” he says.

 

“It is a very nice room,” says Kazama. 

 

There are all manners of holonotes floating around, casting the room into blue light. The corner of empty frames where he tests his glamours is full of incomplete designs. The opposite wall has a very large collection of masks hanging over its entirety. His closet is open, and half the clothes are shoved haphazardly into drawers instead of on their hangers. Just as he had left it. There is a cup of pungent tea by his bedside.

 

“It’d be better if you weren’t in it,” Hwoarang retorts. He grabs the cup of tea and chugs it unhappily.

 

“How is your head?”

 

“Ugh,” says Hwoarang. 

 

Somehow, while Hwoarang had been recovering from his very strenuous, very helpful deeds thank-you-very-much, Kazama and Baek have built some sort of rapport. Thoughts of collaboration too, stars forbid.

 

“Jin told me that you uncovered a lot of Hwa Eum Pa’s activity,” Baek says, pouring Hwoarang another cup of tea. He refuses to touch it until he has had at least three servings of galbi.

 

“Who’s Jin,” says Hwoarang around a mouthful of beef, right as the information clicks in his head.

 

“And that a lot of the activity involving Haenyo incidents are largely due to the deal between G-Corp and criminal groups on the Corean and Japanese coasts.”

 

“Your father said he is willing to look more into the trade deals between the two countries,” Jin says. “Of course, he said you could help after your recovery. I will keep my working base here open for you, but I should return to Tokyo and reach out to my connections for the time being.”

 

“Right,” Hwoarang nods slowly to show that he is very, very serious. “Can I go back to sleep?”

 

“Finish your tea,” Baek says.

 

Jin leaves after lunch with the promise to send more information over, and also a key to his workspace. Miserably, Hwoarang convenes with Baek over another pot of tea.

 

“I’m glad you’re back safe,” Baek tells him, pouring him another cup.

 

“Yes father,” Hwoarang mumbles.

 

“But you will need to be careful. Hwa Eum Pa is outraged right now.”

 

“Yes, father.”

 

Baek sighs. “Hwoarang. Kazama Jin is bad news. He triggered all the possible security warnings possible when I brought him in, even with his processes dormant. His energy readings were so dense I couldn’t even get a proper measure on them. Not to mention the unregistered tech he had.”

 

“I reattached his arm, once. Not so bad.” Hwoarang holds up a hand before Baek responds. “He told you that the mastermind behind this mess is his dad, right.”

 

Leaning back, Baek considers this. He looks tired. Probably pulled another two full cycles with no sleep despite his age. It really is no wonder that he's crabby all the time. “No, he was very secretive about his own background.”

 

“Right. He and I have a lot of unresolved issues in that regard, I think,” Hwoarang says.

 

“He seems to like you.”

 

“Very unfortunate,” Hwoarang says. “Anyways, I think I will work with him. This is probably a bad decision, but your tea isn’t helping.”

 

Baek smiles softly. “It’s good to see you motivated, Hwoarang.”

 

“Yes,” Hwoarang says, standing. “I am feeling very motivated to sleep. Goodnight, father.”

 

“Goodnight, Hwoarang.”

 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my talents include spending most of my time worldbuilding and [drawing out concepts](https://imgur.com/a/Td5mqmh) instead of actually finishing a story

**Author's Note:**

> diving assassins are [Haenyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haenyeo) inspired  
> interesting read on modern [anti-surveillance](https://scinapse.io/papers/2085188888)


End file.
